Coast Guard suspends search for missing Oahu fisherman

HONOLULU – The Coast Guard suspended the search for an overdue local fisherman at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday pending any new developments.

Kon Wai Young, a 53-year-old local fisherman, was reported missing Saturday after he departed on a fishing trip aboard his 19-foot green and white pleasure craft.

The Coast Guard’s search area covered 18,536 square miles, an area three times the size of the Big Island.

Coast Guard assets involved in the search included crews aboard the Coast Guard Cutters Ahi and Kiska and HC-130 Hercules airplanes and MH-65 Dolphin helicopters from Coast Guard Air Station Barbers Point. A Coast Guard Auxiliary aircrew conducted a search of the south coast of Molokai while transiting to Maui on an unrelated trip.

The Honolulu Fire Department also assisted in the search.

In addition to surface and air assets, the Coast Guard implemented the use of the Search and Rescue Optimal Planning System to determine the search area with the highest probability for locating Young. SAROPS is a computer program which calculates environmental factors such as weather, wind speed and direction, current speed and direction and the size of the search object. From that data, a search area is calculated. In addition to SAROPS, the Hercules aircrew deployed a self-locating datum marker buoy, which also calculates and measures currents to better assist search and rescue teams in coordinating their search patterns.

A crew aboard a Hercules searched Tuesday. The crew aboard the Ahi searched Tuesday throughout the evening into Wednesday.